My professional interest in antimicrobial agents and contamination control goes back 50 years to my tour as a microbiologist in a field hospital in Europe during World War II. With no experience and relying solely on a military handbook, I prepared thermometer trays with jars of blue bichloride of mercury and pink isopropyl alcohol. A preliminary typhoid diagnosis of one of our cooks resulted in the need for lab testing. His stool specimen and its subsequent disposal was my problem. My handbook said bum it. So burn it T did, in a five-gallon can with gasoline. Flames shot up almost six feet,...